The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy maintains this blog to disseminate information relevant to astronomers who identify as women. If you have an idea for a blog post or topic, please submit to wia-blog at lists.aas.org.
The views expressed on this site are not necessarily the views of the CSWA, the AAS, its Board of Trustees, or its membership.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Why So Few? High School Foundation II

The 2010 report entitled, Why So Few? Women in Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, by the American
Association of University Women (AAUW), reviews GPAs and high-stakes testing. The graph above shows students’ average GPA
in high school math and science combined over time, by gender. High school
girls now also earn higher GPAs in math and science, on average, than their
male peers do. It is also important to note that average GPAs in math and
science for all students are improving over time.

Girls’ participation and performance on
high-stakes tests in high school are also improving over time, although boys
are more likely to take these tests and perform better than girls on average. For
example, more students - both girls and boys - are taking AP exams over time.
Girls are less likely to take the AP exams in STEM subjects such as calculus,
physics, computer science, statistics, and chemistry, but high school girls are
more likely to take the AP exam in biology and environmental science compared
with boys. Additionally, as this graph shows, on average, boys perform better
than girls do on AP tests in math and science. The graph above shows the
average scores on Advanced Placement tests in math and science subjects by
gender in 2009.

Note: much of this text is from the AAUW pptdescribing highlights of the Why So Few? report.